Guiding to Truth

Guiding to Truth

Article:

In one of the articles[1]

posted at ‘Answering Islam’, the author has pointed out a contradiction in Yunus

10: 35 and Ibraheem 14: 4. Yunus 10: 35 reads as:

Say: ‘Do any of your partners, that you ascribe to God, guides to the

Truth?’ Say: ‘[Only] God guides to the truth. Then, is He Who guides to the

truth more deserving to be followed or those who cannot guide to anything,

except that they themselves first be guided? What is the matter with you? How,

then, do you decide?’

While, Ibraheem 14: 4 reads as:

Whenever we have sent a messenger [among a people, he would speak] in the

language of his people, to make [God’s commandments] clear to them. Then

[after the message is delivered], God leads astray whoever He pleases and

guides [to the right path] whoever He pleases. And He is Mighty, Wise.

The first among the two cited verses, declares that God guides to the truth

(the right path), while the second of the two verses states that God only

guides, whom He pleases, to the right path, the rest, for whom He pleases, He

leads astray.

I have already explained the Qur’anic Law of Guidance, which covers the

stated objection, in one of my previous responses to Mr. Jochen Katz’s

criticisms on the Qur’an[2].

There is no use repeating the whole explanation.

Nevertheless, it seems pertinent to say that according to the Qur’anic

teachings, absolute wisdom, mercy, knowledge, justice, omnipotence and

providence are inseparable attributes of God. None of His decisions contradict

these attributes. Thus, God’s pleasure, according to the Qur’an as well as

according to common sense, in fact, implies the pleasure of a being with the

stated qualities. Thus, when the Qur’an says: “God guides whom He pleases and

leads astray whom He pleases”, it actually implies that God guides to the

straight path all those who, according to His absolute knowledge, wisdom, mercy,

justice, providence and omnipotence deserve to be guided to the straight path

and leads astray all those who deserve to be led astray; and when God decides

about the guidance or the leading astray of a people, no one can hinder the

implementation of His decision. He implements His decisions according to His own

likings, which are based on the stated attributes, not according the likings or

commands of anyone else.

Ignoring the aforementioned point, Mr. Jochen Katz writes:

Sura 10:35 does NOT say He guides to truth EXCEPT in a few circumstances.

“God guides to truth” is an ABSOLUTE statement. And it is wrong…

With due respect to Mr. Katz, the above is not the correct implication of the

referred verse. The implication of the verse is not, as Mr. Katz has construed,

that ‘God guides to the truth only’, on the contrary, it is: ‘Only God guides to

the truth’. A thorough understanding of the difference between the two

statements should suffice as an answer to Mr. Katz’s objection. Mr. Katz has, in

fact, correctly criticized his preferred interpretation of the referred verse.

Just as the statement “God gives life” is not contradictory to the statement “God

causes to die”, unless the first statement be construed as ‘God gives life only’,

in the same manner Yunus 10: 35 does not contradict Ibraheem 14: 4

unless the former be interpreted as: ‘God guides to the straight path only’,

which, obviously, is not the correct implication of the verse[3].

Mr. Katz has very interestingly pointed out:

… in 4:157 he [i.e., God] does make believe people in something that is

false. And the problem is, he mislead also those who want to follow God, not

only those who are his enemies anyway. Or how do you explain that the

disciples and all of early Christianity believed in the crucifixion?

Before commenting on this statement, let us first 

take a look at Al-Nisaa 4: 157. The verse reads as:

And [due to] their [i.e. the Jews’] saying: ‘We killed the Christ, Jesus

son of Mary — the messenger of God — And the fact is that they neither

killed nor crucified him, but the matter was rendered into confusion for them.

It is quite clear from the cited verse that it was not the sincere disciples

of Jesus (pbuh) for whom the matter was rendered into confusion — which

resulted in their straying for the right path. It was, in fact, those who, even

after it had become clear to them that Jesus (pbuh) was a true prophet and

messenger of God, not only refused to believe in him, but did all that they

could in getting him out of their way.

Keeping the above explanation in perspective, it is clear that the three

referred verses of the Qur’an do not contradict each other in any way.

The point that the Qur’anic stipulation regarding the lack of crucifixion

contradicts the Christian creed remains to be answered. Nevertheless, because

Mr. Katz has divided the “Contradictions in the Qur’an” section of his site into

three parts — i.e. ‘Internal Contradictions’, ‘External Contradictions’ and ‘Contradictions

with Earlier Revelations’ — it would seem more prudent that if Mr. Katz needs

this objection to be answered, he should place it in the second or the third

part. For the time being, my concern is to analyze the claim of ‘Internal

Contradictions’ in the Qur’an, which, in my opinion, adequately accomplished for

the matter under consideration.

© Copyright December 2000. All Rights Reserved with the Author